What Remains
By late afternoon, he is like a nub of chalk
resting in the dusty tray beneath the board,
like a tattered screen curled up
in its cylinder at the top of its chain.
Paul J. Willis
Paul J. Willis is a professor of English at Westmont College and a former poet laureate of Santa Barbara, California. His most recent collections are Deer at Twilight: Poems from the North Cascades (S
The Virgin and the Museum of Natural History
Out the back of the museum, across the footbridge,
through the native Chumash garden, among the quiet
of live oaks, along the path and up the steps,
and just beyond the sign that
Precipice Lake
When my water bottle rolled off
the slab and into the lake, I hesitated
to snatch it out,
and in that moment the breeze took it
silently away from shore,
sailing over the
Sustainability
(Laryx lyallis)
A few weeks after my mother died,
I dreamed that she was waiting for me
in a ravine of spring-green larches.
There was no worry in her eyes, and
she sat